Winters
in NJ don’t really have a normal. They vary wildly from one year to the next:
sometimes autumn-like and snow-free, sometimes bone-chilling with serial
blizzards. You never know. This one so far has been a potpourri: days that were
randomly balmy and icy, sunny and overcast, rainy and snowy. This past Monday was
snowy one. 30 inches (76 cm) of wet and heavy snow fell, which housebound me
more effectively than covid. The fellow who plows my driveway had mechanical
problems with his truck thereby keeping my 200 ft (61 m) long driveway nearly
impassible until late last night. Prior to then, I decided to dig out portions
by hand shovel: particularly the wall of snow and ice piled up at the driveway
entrance by passing municipal snow plow vehicles as well as the snow dune in
front of my garage that had been augmented by snow sliding off the roof. At
least in an emergency I might have been able to get my truck out of the garage
and down the sloping driveway to the road even though it never could never make
the return trip back up.
There
is, of course, a risk to this. A Quebec study of 128,000 hospital admissions
for heart attack over a 30 year period found a direct correlation of snowfall
accumulation and deaths. A snowfall over 8 inches (20 cm) meant a 34% rise in
heart attack deaths. Nearly all of the additional casualties were middle-age
and senior men – in other words me. But
I have shoveled many materials over many years. My very first real paying job was
with a shovel: spreading gravel on a construction site at age 16. So it would
be fitting to go out with a shovel on a nonpaying job – a life arc of sorts.
Snow varies
in weight by density, but wet snow of Monday’s variety typically weighs 20
pounds per cubic foot (318 kg per cubic meter). Doing the math on the area and
depth of the driveway and walkway sections I shoveled, the total is a bit more
than 12 tons (11 metric tons). I suppose I could dig out some more just so I
can sing along with Tennessee Ernie Ford, but I don’t think it’s worth it. Mr.
Ford was singing about coal, of course, but I do generally use a coal shovel
for digging through deep snow; it is sturdier and better balanced than standard
snow shovels. Anyway, the snow plow arrived eventually. I’ve contemplated
acquiring a truck and plow of my own, but they are too pricey for the number of
times they are useful unless you intend to conduct a side business plowing driveways.
I still had to clean up, again with a shovel, after the plow, which is normal.
Recognizable
shovels of all kinds in all parts of the world have been around at least since
Neolithic times. Possibly earlier. Every structure more permanent than a tent needs
a foundation, even if it is just leveled earth. Before you can build you must
dig. Specialized snow shovels are older than one might think, too. A 6000-year-old
one has been found in a Russian bog. The blade is carved from an elk antler. The
archaeologists who studied it say the blade was tied to a wood handle. It
wouldn’t have been much good for shoveling anything tougher than snow, but for
that purpose it is surprisingly suitable. Shovels suited to harder digging had
to wait the arrival of metallurgy, but making shovels was one of the earliest
uses of metals besides weapons and jewelry. Different types for different tasks
appeared quickly and the designs haven’t changed much in thousands of years.
The ancient Roman Army’s entrenching shovel doesn’t look much different from
the current US Army entrenching shovel except that the former doesn’t fold. In
the War of Independence, George Washington’s troops used cast iron shovels made
by John Ames in Massachusetts: much of the time for snow removal during the
tough winters of the war years. The Ames Shovel Company, founded in 1774, is
still in business.
I
haven’t counted them (and I don’t wish to go out to the garage and barn at the
moment just to do so) but I estimate that I have at present a dozen shovels,
give or take a couple. I used to have more, but some were so old that the
handles split and it wasn’t worth fitting a new one. (My father was a builder,
so I still have a barn full of hand and power tools plus dozens of boxes of
nails ranging from brads to 60-penny spikes.) Three of the shovels are snow shovels
– four if you count the coal shovel.
Digging
is so ingrained in our consciousness as a way to get at the bottom of something
that “to dig” means to understand – usually connoting “liking,” though it is
possible to dig something you don’t like. In my youth the verb was used in this
sense commonly and unironically. Nowadays it tends to be used as a deliberate
affectation: aping a beatnik speech pattern that is no longer current. Yet the
meaning is still understood. Sometimes when we understand what someone tells
us, we still reach for the metaphorical shovel: sometimes to deal with
metaphorical snow, and sometimes for something else.
Barry McGuire
– Why Not Stop And Dig It While You Can
That's a whole lotta snow. Currently here we are experiencing a short freeze with drizzle and maybe snow and ice by the weekend. We had a previous snow, and as you said a wet (and heavy one) that weighed down trees and plants. One of my tree limbs split in the back and landed down on the roof, which I had to cut down. It can be dangerous work, which I knew ahead of time, and there was a close call with part of the limb swinging down close to my approximation. Thanks God it didn't hit me or knock me off the ladder.
ReplyDeleteMy power also went out, which only prodded me to make a firewood rack in the backyard. I'll add to it over the years. The heat would have felt good during all that.
I also ran into an issue with heat. Gas lines weren’t being extended when this street was built during the energy crunch in the 70s so I have oil furnaces. My driveway isn’t steep, but it is a steady upgrade from the road for 200 feet so the oil delivery truck tends to lose traction about halfway up if there is the slightest ice or snow cover on it. When else do you need the oil? So, with the tank teetering on empty, from last Thursday to yesterday when the truck finally made it up I’ve been going out and buying 10 gallons at a time and ferrying it back in cans in my pickup. I try to keep 10 or 15 gallons on hand just for circumstances like that. If the power goes out though (it happens) it’s firewood time for me, too. Be careful of those trees. A friend of mine was seriously injured last year when one came through his house.
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